


hungry eyed & weather stained

by manolovesmutants



Category: DCU (Movies), Teen Titans (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Superfamily
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-20
Updated: 2012-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-16 16:38:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/541608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manolovesmutants/pseuds/manolovesmutants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Quiet punctuates the unrest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hungry eyed & weather stained

**I.**

No matter how it might have been presented in films or television, Anthony Stark knew one thing in life. Spooning with another man was the most uncomfortable experience one could have. The thing with the penis against the spine, arguing over who was big spoon and who was little spoon, etcetera, etcetera. No, it wasn’t good. Yet the funny part was that Tony and his other half, Steve Rogers, were sure to do the very act every single night they had together.

And the accompanying argument commenced every night, regardless of the fact that they both knew who would win the battle. But it was a little bit like a ritual actually doing it each and every night. Almost like a bedtime story.

Steve would call big spoon. Tony would assert that it was his tower and they should be playing by his rules. Steve would roll his eyes and say that it makes sense for the taller one to be the bigger spoon. Tony would click his tongue and say not to use mutant genetics as an advantage over him. Steve would promise (fingers crossed behind his back) that he would let Tony be the big spoon tomorrow. And Tony would give in, knowing that he'd never be the big spoon anyway.

So they would lay, Steve’s body turned to Tony’s back, both angled the same way. Comfortable. Happy. Loved.

For about fifteen minutes. Then, Tony would start squirming.

“ _Cap._ ”

“ _Mm..?_ ”

“ _I can feel your dick against my spine._ ”

“ _And what are you going to do about it?_ ”

“ _I can’t do anything about it, you’re holding me too tight. Back off._ ”

“ _No. I’m comfortable here, thanks._ ”

“ _Cap._ ”

“ _It’s warm here…_ ”

“ _Cap._ ”

“ _Shut up, Stark…”_

Steve would already be fast asleep by then, breathing deeply, lips on the back of Tony’s neck. (Tony loved the feel of Cap’s lips. Soft but rough to the touch from the way Steve always bit his own bottom lip when in deep thought.) The entrepreneur would sigh in euphoria, eyelids drooping as he enjoyed the simplicity and pure joy of the situation. It was something Tony Stark didn’t often get to experience, but the moments, when they came along, were beautiful.

(The times would come occasionally when he knew how to shut up.)

**II.**

They sat on the balcony, sitting champagne from paper cups, on the nineteenth of November. The view from Avengers Tower - previously Stark Tower in a time where Tony was a little more selfish - at this time was breathtaking; city lights smattered across a landscape of skyscrapers and nightlife.

Steve was proposing a little something more than a toast that night.

It wasn’t exactly subtle, the way he went about it. It was more like cornering Tony in the kitchen while the multi-billionaire retrieved another bottle of vodka. A small kiss on the nape of Tony’s neck; Steve’s arms were wrapped around his boyfriend’s waist.

“ _Hey, Stark._ ”

“ _Hello,_ ” said Tony, reaching up for the Goose on the top shelf of the cabinet before him. The familiar sibilance of the arc reactor filled the comfortable silence between the two.

“ _I need to talk to you, Stark._ ”

“ _We are talking, Cap._ ”

Steve actually gulped.

“ _Are you breaking up with me?_ ” Of course Tony was joking, but even the notion set Steve’s teeth on edge.

“ _No, no way!_ ” It sounded a little too frantic coming from his mouth. The familiar Stark smirk formed on Tony’s lips.

Silence again. Tony poured himself a glass, leaning back into his boyfriend’s arms and taking a languid gulp.

Steve decided that he really needed to grow a pair at that moment.

“ _Marry me, Tony?_ ”

Tony turned violently, eyes wide as saucer, and for a moment Steve assumed the worst would happen. He would vomit on him or punch him or faint or something equally horrible. Preparing himself whatever was to come, he cringed and closed his eyes... but found instead that Tony’s warm lips were pressed firmly against his.

Steve found that he liked it better this way, tasting cherry vodka on his boyfriend’s breath. Somehow it was more intoxicating than the actual substance could ever be – it even got the super soldier, with all his cells’ modifications, drunk.

They parted for air. 

“ _That’s a yes, just so you know. You beat me to the chase, asshole._ ”

Steve laughed. Intertwining their fingers, the two walked, positively glowing, to go spread the happy news.

**III.**

The wedding was supposed to be a hush-hush ordeal. A quiet and simple couple of signatures on a marriage license, a civil marriage ceremony and then a party with their closest friends afterwards. No one would have to know except those close enough to be trusted, and those observant enough to notice the wedding bands.

But even with the confidentiality and uncomplicated nature of the entire thing, both Tony and Steve couldn't help but feel that their feet were nearly frostbitten.

In Tony, it manifested itself in sickness and lack of inspiration. A fortnight before the Day, Tony caught a severe cold that left him bedridden for a week. In any usual circumstance, Tony would ultimately ignore the symptoms and go to work in the laboratory anyway. But he found that instead his mind was filled with thoughts of marriage and children and Steve and domestics and fear of all of the above. He couldn't think, he couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep, so instead he just sat in bed with Conan on, telling himself to calm down.

(No, he didn't calm down, and the fact that he is married will terrify him til his last day.) 

In Steve, it manifested itself in the cleaning and reckless gambling. The super soldier had always been a little bit of a neat-freak, a stickler for organization and clean-cut appearance, something inherited from his time in the army. But just around the same time as Tony's sickness hit, Steve began the compulsive cleaning. Tony and Steve's floor of Avengers Tower was nearly always filled with the hum of a vacuum or the sterile scent of industrial cleaners. And then there was the incessant gambling with Clint - it was mainly poker that Steve played, and both would bet extravagant amounts of money. Mainly it was Clint who walked away the winner, and Steve would lost copious amounts of money this way.

(Your poker face tends to suck when you're the face of truth and justice.)

The New York City Marriage Bureau on a Friday morning in July. Tony and Steve stand shoulder-to-shoulder in front of a civil servant. They sign papers and walk out holding hands. The next day, they walk out again, wedding bands on their left ring fingers, 24-karat smiles, and their closest friends nearby.

And it really was as simple as that.

**IV.**

" _Trust me, Steve. It's a lot more fun this way._ "

The statement was punctuated by the tinkling noise of a trayful of dropped beakers. Electrical physicists really didn't belong in genetics laboratories, Steve thought to himself.

" _Most gays just adopt, you know._ "

" _I'm aware._ "

" _Are you also aware of how ridiculous and highly improbable this thing you're trying to do is?_ " Banner said, adjusting the slide underneath the microscope he was looking into.

" _Reassuring as always,_ " Tony dismissed Banner easily. " _There's no less reason to try._ "

**V.**

They kept it in some sort of biofluid, and it was the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen. A gamete each from Steve, Tony, and Pepper was all Bruce and Tony needed to make it work. Child of science, test tube baby; it would be another seven months before the gestation period would be over, and suddenly this science experiment in Banner's lab would be something breathing and small and lively.

And most importantly, his. His kid. His kid with Tony.

Steve leaned forward and rested his head against the glass cylinder. The embryo was tiny, barely visible in the cucumber-green hue of the viscous liquid it was suspended in.

Two months passed. Face against the glass once more; it was the day the gender was to be determined. Steve couldn't even contain his excitement, and he was sure to tell his little _boy_ so.

Tony would sometimes stop by to tell the both of them about his day: how it went, what he built, and various complaints about anything and everything. But mostly it was just Steve and Banner alone in that lab, Banner working and Steve reading or painting. The occasional alien invasion or Avenger's mission sent the lab into top-notch lockdown, but other than that and the hours when Steve slept, the embryo was never alone. And that was how, in Steve's opinion, it should have been.

Peter is a nice name, Steve had always thought.

Another two months. Tony said that Peter weighed about two pounds, twelve ounces at that point. Slightly underweight, but he should have been able to pull through. Sometimes Steve and Tony sat for hours in Banner's lab, watching the baby squirm and blink and push the biofluid through its lungs and back, almost like breathing. They held hands and blinked sleepily in the pale green light, something Annette Hanshaw (Steve's choice) playing in the background.

And then the day came. There was a sound almost like a microwave's ding, and all the residents of Avengers Tower were happily aware of the fact that Steve and Tony's baby was done cooking. An odd thing, indeed, but it was happy.

It was May the third when the biofluid had been drained and Peter Christopher Rogers-Stark was ruddy and breathing and so _palpable_ in Tony's arms. With the noise of Peter's steady breath, the world seemed, all at once, quieter and brighter.

It was August the eighteenth when it was all taken away from them again.

**VI.**

There was something tense in the air all throughout the year, but they really never saw it coming. History has a tendency to repeat itself, wise men say. People get paranoid and suspicious and unfortunate events affect people in ways inexplicable.

By that time, the faceless organization known as the Anti-Supers Movement had formed completely and executed the deaths of a few minor X-Men and the entire group known as the Fantastic Four. Heroes and villains alike were targeted simply for being gifted beyond the capacity of the normal human. And if any of the Avengers had caught wind of what the ASM was doing, it would have been evident that their next target would be something high profile. Something like the most famous super couple and their newborn child.

In the night, a small group infiltrated Avengers Tower. Tony was awake at that time, and when JARVIS silently switched the security camera view to follow the trespassers, the first thing he did was to lock Steve and Peter into their rooms. No one would be able to touch them, the genius made sure.

Steve doesn’t have a lucid explanation of what exactly happened because all he knows is panic when the room locks, and then he hears screaming from the other side of the door. When he wakes in the morning, the glass walls are all shattered and Tony is so painfully missing.

His still-humming arc reactor is found on the side of the road, and Steve's knees feel like they're about to give out.

Clint's holding him steady, and Pepper's saying something but it's all drowned out by the rushing of blood in his ears and suddenly, Tony's nothing more than a ghostly image branded on the tender flesh of his eyes. But then there was Peter.

A chilling clarity returns to Steve, and he knows innately what to do next.

" _Assemble._ "

Quiet punctuates the unrest.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is patched together from the comics, movies, headcanons and whimsy.
> 
> Also, many thanks to Kali ohmyweasleys and Azul spookystony at tumblr for their help in editing.


End file.
